September 24, 2025 • 55 mins
Could the "purity culture" teachings you received years ago still be affecting your marriage today? In this compelling conversation, we join Pastor Addison Roberts from Grace Community Church to explore the complex legacy many Christian kids received from purity culture about sexuality and how these teachings continue to create unexpected challenges in intimate relationships today.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the Still Becoming One podcast.
We are Brad and Kate.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
In our more than 20 years of marriage, we've
survived both dark times andexperienced restoration.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Now as a licensed marriage counselor and
relationship coaches.
We help couples to regain hopeand joy.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
We invite you to journey with us, as we are Still
Becoming One.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Let's start the conversation.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Hello everyone, Welcome back to Still Becoming
One.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome back.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
We are so glad that you're here today.
We had an awesome conversationthat we are sharing with you
that we actually got hosted onthe Grace Community Church
podcast a local church to usthat we've worked with man for a
(00:56):
couple of years now in doingvarious things, and they wanted
to have a conversation aboutpurity culture and how purity
culture is impacting marriages.
So we asked them if we couldkind of cross post, because
their podcast mostly goes out totheir attenders and obviously
(01:21):
ours is a different audiencethan that.
So but we thought thisconversation was so valuable in
really thinking through if youor your spouse, or especially if
one of you, was raised inpurity culture, but even if both
of you were, you know, tryingto think through what is it,
where's it coming from, and howdoes it still reach into
(01:45):
marriages?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
How did it impact us at the time?
How did we decipher what wasall being told to us?
If you were a part of purityculture and figuring you know,
boiling it down, figuring outwhat you believed about sex,
marriage, sexual intimacy andyourself, as a sexual creature
(02:10):
through purity culture, becauseI think there's a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
There is.
There is a lot conversationthat we're kind of talking about
.
You know how it impacts us anda little bit in how it's
impacting us as parents as well.
We kind of get into a littlebit.
So we hope that you enjoy thisconversation with Pastor Addison
(02:35):
Roberts from GCC and we willsee you next time on Still
Becoming One.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
All right, Brad and Kate Aldridge, thanks so much
for popping in and talking aboutthis, and obviously we've.
We've had you here on the GCCpodcast before, and then you
guys also have your own.
So talk a little bit about whoyou are, what you do for the one
audience, and then also aboutsome of the other podcast stuff,
(03:03):
and then we'll get into wherewe're going.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Kate and I are marriage andfamily coaches and counselors.
I'm a licensed marriage andfamily therapist and we have
been passionate a bit aboutmarriage ministry for oh man 15
years, a long time now andhonestly, that passion came from
(03:30):
seeing God change, radicallychange our marriage and just
then starting to talk to eachother and then to our friends
and some of those things aboutwhat was different and how it
started to grow, and that justcontinued us going.
Wait a minute, god's design formarriage is so much better than
(03:55):
we have, I think, limitedourself to, and we knew so many
people, we had so many friendswho had just kind of settled
into.
Well, I guess this is whatmarriage is, and we were very
passionate about saying, hey,wait a minute, there is a path
to still become one together andcontinue on that journey.
(04:17):
And so that's where the name ofour podcast Still Becoming One
came out of is this idea that weare on a journey of marriage
together and we can keep goingand growing and learning as we
learn and heal ourselves, as wegrow closer to God together and
as we work on intimacy andconnection together.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Yeah, Right and you guys are popping.
I'm sorry, katie, I cut you off.
I'm used to one host thing, ohyou're fine.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Nope, Keep going.
Oh yeah, I was going to saything Are you going to edit that
?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
You're fine.
Nope, keep going.
Oh yeah, I was going to say youguys are spending some time
with us here in January on the17th marriage conference.
We might not retain people tillthe very end, so you want to
give a 30 second pitch on whatthat is?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Go for it.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Oh, ok, there we go.
We're excited to spend time withyour church community or
anybody that would come, andwe're just going to be talking
about the different areas ofintimacy in marriage and kind of
digging through them.
But I hope people will give ita shot because I would say it's
(05:23):
not the typical way people diveinto that and I think it's a
really applicable way and reallywe want to tailor it to you,
believe it or not.
So yeah, we're going to bespending some time with your
community and talking aboutthose topics together.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
So we talk about how do you actually do emotional
intimacy?
People throw that term aroundbut then what?
does it mean?
Why do you actually do it?
What does that look like?
Then we talk about spiritualintimacy.
What even is spiritual intimacywhen we put it in the terms of
a couple, and how can a coupleuse that to grow together?
(06:02):
Then we talk about sexualintimacy, which is kind of where
we're going to get into alittle bit today, and we talk
about what does it look like tofigure out what healthy sexual
intimacy is as a couple?
And then we do a fourth onethat's kind of unique, that we
call story intimacy.
Story intimacy and just thereal quick is we see that every
(06:32):
one of us has a story that we'vegrown up in, that have shaped
who we are both beautiful, goodthings, but also hard and
wounding things.
And while our spouse oftenknows the facts about those
stories, they often miss thedeeper things that still come
into today and what we find atthose our stories, our past have
(06:54):
written some things in ourheart that still interact today
and when we work with couples wesee them stepping on each
other's stories, not becausethey don't care, but because
those things still becometriggers and become wounds.
So learning how to interactwith that is the goal.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Well, that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, that's exciting.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Which leads us really well into our topic today.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Yeah, so our topic today came from.
Actually, I was listening to apodcast and it was a more
secular podcast and it was anauthor who had written a book
and they were talking about GenZ, by choice or by lack of
intimate relationships more thankind of any previous generation
.
That a, I think.
I think the stat was one fourthof 16 to 28 year old Gen Z, or
(07:52):
say that they've never had asexual encounter.
And and the podcaster mentionedwas was actually a secular
person.
I'm always fascinated when asecular person is speaking
against pornography because it'salways like, yeah, and and they
said, she said, she said, youknow, the sad reality is is that
(08:14):
the only positive vision that alot of these kids get, where
sex is reflected positively is,is in pornography and that is
not a realistic depiction ofsexual intimacy.
And that led to me calling Bradand saying, hey, what are you
saying, what are you doing?
And let us down a conversationabout how I think the fear for
(08:35):
me as a parent, as a, as a.
You know, I'm 36, our kids are10.
I, one of them, just turnedeight, so I've been, I've been
saying 10, seven and two for awhole year, 10, eight, and will
be three on here on about fivedays and a realization of.
I was raised in what would becalled purity culture and I saw
(08:56):
the landmines of it andexperienced some of the
landmines of it, and watched mycolleagues and my classmates in
Bible college experience some ofthe landmines of it and
experienced some of thelandmines of it and watched my
colleagues and my classmates inBible college experience some of
the landmines of it.
And as I prepare to go throughand navigate that with my kids,
I'm going okay, I don't wantthem to have those emotions, but
(09:17):
I don't.
How do I?
I only have what I have.
You know, I only have like moreor less work for me.
You know what I mean but youknow, with some landmines and so
what I'm hoping to kind ofwrestle with, and I know I said
a lot and if you want to picksomething off and say something
to it, go ahead.
But let's talk about purityculture.
What is?
Maybe people are listening andlike I don't know what purity
(09:38):
culture is.
What are we talking about whenwe say purity culture?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
That's a great question.
How would you define it?
The reason I want you to defineit first is I'm very
transparent about I didn't growup in purity culture, but I was
a youth pastor towards the endof purity culture.
I mean Joshua Harris's book wascoming out, so there was still
and I definitely have influencesand thoughts but, I, didn't
grow up as a kid in it.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
I'm the one who grew up in it, for sure, and had that
influence of the church tryingto figure out how do they get
around the sexual revolution ofthe 60s and communicate.
Well, that, hey, wait a minute.
The value of waiting untilmarriage is still important.
That's where it came out of theheart of it is super good,
(10:30):
right.
It is the church saying wecan't ignore this anymore
because forever it had just been.
Everybody knew you're supposedto wait till marriage and even
if people didn't, there was somuch cultural pressure around
that the expectation was stillthat people did.
That was changing in the 70sand 80s and because of the
(10:53):
sexual revolution, and thechurch was trying to respond to
that by saying no, wait a minute, we still have to wait until
marriage and trying to say whythey never did a good job of
saying why what they did was usefear to say that if you do not
meet some standard, that youaren't worth anything anymore.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
And so what they tended to say was sex is evil.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
What they tended to say was sex is evil, sex is bad,
sex is so bad that we don'twant you to even think about it
until you're married, and theneverything's fine and we don't
really want to talk about itthen either.
That's kind of the message thatended up happening.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
And I would say, beyond that, a messaging of
almost a canonization of what Iwould call an asexual preference
.
Correct, you know, it's likethe good kids in the youth group
were the ones that were like,yeah, I don't have any desire to
masturbate, I don't have anydesire to lust, I don't have it.
(11:59):
You know A hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
And you are exactly right.
A canonization like that's theideal is that you just don't
have any sexual desire.
We turn all of that off untilyou get married and then somehow
it magically turns it back on.
And you can tell from mylanguage where we run into this
all the time is in marriedcouples who are now struggling
(12:23):
sexually and they don't know why.
And those messages are sointernalized of.
You know I'm going to be bad ifI do this, if I actually even
enjoy sex somehow I'm bad, likesome of those things.
Even though it is in aChristian marriage context,
they're still believing andfeeling many of those messages
(12:47):
that they grew up with.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I think too, like we came out of you were talking
about the 60s and 70s, but I dothink it's worth mentioning
there was the sexual revolution,and then there was the other
side that was like let's nottalk about it at all, and so you
had these two extremes.
So you're either growing up inone or the other, but I think a
lot of times, the let's not talkabout it at all, and so you had
these two extremes.
So you're either growing up inone or the other, but I think a
lot of times, the let's not talkabout it at all.
(13:10):
I'm going to overgeneralizehere.
We're more of the church peopleand so then out of that, I
believe, came this need of like.
Let's talk about it more.
But the way purity culture choseto talk about it, I think was a
really brave attempt.
But I think, as you said,addison, it led to some of those
(13:33):
landmines and we weren'tactually giving kids the
information that they needed andwe were then using that fear.
I think it—I have lots ofthoughts on this.
But I think it also led and I'dbe curious, brad, to hear what
you think about this of like itprobably ramped up pornography.
(13:54):
Oh, because it didn't give theright information.
And then there is what if I dohave this desire?
What if I don't understand whatsex is?
Well, my parents aren'tnecessarily going to be the ones
to tell me.
so I'm going to go figure it out, or somebody's going to tell me
at school, and then I'm goingto go explore something.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
No, I mean 100%.
And I've been pretty open withmy journey with pornography,
which started for me around 12.
And I was the church kid.
I was the good kid.
My parents, you know, my dad,was an elder Like I was in
church all the time.
I was a youth group kid, I wasa young life kid, I all of those
(14:37):
things on the outside.
I was the purity culture ideal,100%.
Everyone from my childhoodwould have said that.
But I was wrestling withpornography from 12 on and I
remember it was probably around15 after I had been years in
(14:59):
pornography.
Now okay, I'm old enough thatmost of that was magazines at
that time, but still I wasinvolved in it.
Um, I had already hadgirlfriends that you know had
had been somewhat, you know,active with, although not
sexually active, thankfully, um,and it was at that point
(15:22):
probably like 15, almost gettinginto like 16 and driver's
license and stuff that I thinkmy dad kind of entered my room
at one point let me know thatwas it and, to be honest, like,
yes, I read the whole bookbecause, of course, right, but I
knew absolutely a whole lotmore already learned, like I
already educated myself on allof these things way too late
(16:08):
right.
And then obviously what hadhappened?
Like his I love my father isnot saying anything against him,
but his body posture of backingout, incredibly embarrassed,
certainly did not welcome moreconversation right like, and
that was it.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
We never had a single conversation about it yeah, I
mean, my experience was raisedin a single mother home.
You know, um, and I don't.
Yeah, you talk about like thetalk or whatever, and I and I
think it was just like I thinkone of my sisters who are seven
years older than me said like ifyou ever do anything, wear a
condom.
And I was like OK, you know,yeah, and that was that was it,
(16:54):
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Wow, yeah, and I think, I think that's one of the
first things that purityculture unfortunately Didn't do.
Well, it's actually.
The information is too latebelieve it or not?
Purity culture really impactedthe youth group ages, which is
understandable.
You're not going to do this ina, you know, like Sunday school
(17:19):
setting with younger kids, butthe reality is kids between
eight and 10 already need theirparents to be helping them
understand their body, helpingthem understand, like in age,
appropriate ways what's comingRight.
And many times I do thinkfamilies are kind of waiting for
youth groups to do the talkbecause, well then, we don't
(17:41):
have to do it right.
And I will tell you, brad and Iwere passionate about we're
having these talks with our kids.
At the same time I rememberwhen I was about ready to talk
to my daughter, thinking I can'tdo this, I can't do this.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Oh, it's terrifying.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
I don't want to tell her these things because she's
going to figure out what her dadand I are doing, Like there are
pieces that are veryuncomfortable even for people
who feel how important it is andhow important, but I think
that's one of the first thingsyou know you need to be having
age appropriate conversationswith your kids about their
bodies, and that it's good, butand I think that it's good is.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
I don't want to stop you from what you're saying,
that it's good.
Stop you from what you'resaying that it's good it's is is
such a thing there because itwas like the way, the way I
think the message of purityculture was that abstinence is
good sex is not right and and,and it was this idea.
There's this, uh, famousillustration that happened of of
(18:40):
passing a rose around a roomwith 400 students in it.
Right.
And then you know I've never inthere with it or whatever, but
I can imagine you know it's likeand it's like well, who's going
to want the rose?
Sorry, I need to explain morethe idea of altar call teenagers
pass a rose around the room,the rose gets beaten to heck and
(19:01):
then the guy speaking gets itback and it's all damaged and
it's like well, who's going towant this rose?
And I think the messaging ofpurity culture a lot of times
was well, you're investing inyour future marriage.
And it was this idea that I amdelivering a product to my wife
and the purity of this productis dependent on my decisions.
(19:25):
And I was in my I was 21 beforeI heard a preacher say it's not
about delivering some product,it's about practicing,
practicing faithfulness inadvance, like it's.
It's purity is actually about aself-control practice more than
(19:46):
it is about delivery of a pureproduct.
And I.
That was a change for me,because it was this idea of oh,
if, once you get married, you'recarrying all your sexual
partners into marriage andyou're yeah, I mean you.
You've heard all this stuffI'll tell you, addison the.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
The analogy that I remember seeing in youth group
and having then to work throughmyself is the band-aid principle
, one where they stuck aband-aid on somebody and then
ripped it off and stuck it onsomebody else and ripped it off
and stuck like and did that longenough and then it doesn't
stick.
(20:26):
And the message in there was ifyou have sex with all these
people, then sex isn't somethingspecial for your marriage and
stick on your yeah, well, and ityeah, because they were talking
about attachment and connectionand all these things that
basically were saying, if you dothis, sex won't work later.
But the promise and this iswhat we see so often in couples
(20:49):
now that it's this promise ofwait a minute, I did it right.
Why is this so hard now?
It was supposed to be easy andgood when we followed all the
rules.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yes, we've dealt with that quite a bit People, yes,
and then they've struggled andit's like but wait, the promise
was Right.
If we did this all correctly,sex would be easy and amazing.
And unfortunately, we also soldthat.
We sold that story as well.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
We did.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
We did.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yeah.
And I think the tragedy theretoo I don't want to stop you
from what you're about to say,Brad the tragedy there too is, I
think, sometimes that thatpromise might deliver for a man,
but but but not for theirspouse Right, and we've actually
had both believe it or not, butyou're not wrong that that's
(21:41):
the more common that we hear andI was going to say and then
I'll let you say whatever you'regoing to say, honey but um,
that, the whole rose principle,the band-aid maybe not as much,
but I have heard the rose oneand many times it was directed
more women women, girls in thegroup than it was at the guys,
(22:02):
and that's another thing I thinkpurity culture has to recognize
.
It put a lot of pressure on thegirls, the women.
It was putting it on the guystoo, but there was some sort of
well, because that was also thetime of dress modestly, Don't,
you, don't want to cause anotherperson to stumble.
All of that was also a part ofpurity culture, and so there was
(22:26):
this sense of I am responsiblefor my brother meaning brother
in Christ for causing them tostumble.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
And so then, I think that brought in that challenge
as well, which speaks to whatyou were just saying, addison,
of that could have worked formen men potentially, but then
there are a lot of women whothen struggle.
I absolutely.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I don't think we can talk about purity culture
without talking about the genderdifferences in that because
there is a really strongidentity of that women have to
protect the men because somehowwe're not strong enough to
(23:14):
actually not sin if they'rewearing a tank top right?
That message was sent so oftenand I just think how twisted
that message is and I see it allthe time in men that I'm
working with through dealingwith pornography or unwanted
sexual behaviors is there isthis idea that they are not
(23:39):
responsible if they're beingtempted by something.
And it's shifted it that wetold youth group women don't
tempt any of the men, but wenever really told the boys like,
hey, that's your responsibilityIf you're tempted, you have to
think about where your eyes areright, because the message is
(23:59):
about lust in scripture, notreally about temptation.
Now, did we teach our kids todress modestly?
Yes, we taught all of our kidsthat boys and girls right, and
so we care about those things.
I don't want to say we ignorethat.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
But we came from the perspective of this is you.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
We did it for them and their bodies, not because of
what they're going to causesomebody else to do and we
wanted them.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
our focus with them was we want you to respect
yourself, body included.
And so we like, and we got to apoint where we let them be more
expressive with their clothing,but after we had made that a
priority, especially when theywere younger and, like, not even
sure why you're wearing theseoutfits or what you're doing.
(24:50):
And then right, but that wasour.
We want you to respect yourselfenough not to be showing parts
of you that the generalpopulation does not need to see,
kind of thing, but not becauseyou're going to make one person
or another stumble the otherplace that this still plays out,
even before we get to thinkingabout our kids, is how it plays
(25:14):
out in marriage, because thereis still in purity culture.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
it is taught that men , you are going to pursue this
and want this and it is up tothe women to be the limiting
factor.
And there's this communicationthat says in marriage, even guys
you're going to want it all thetime and women, you probably
(25:41):
really won't like it a whole lot, but it's your job to make your
husband happy.
There's so many of thosemessages that have been very
inappropriate about what sexualintimacy in marriage actually is
.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Yeah, there's an inbuilt objectification, it's
built into the scaffolding of it.
It's this idea of, yeah, it'sjust this, oh you know, ready
for the wedding night, and theguy's going, yeah, and the
girl's going, it's going to.
You know, it's just like, it'salmost cartoonish Like and it's
and I.
So you see people on everylevel of well, I thought my
(26:25):
husband would be interested inme and he's not.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Right, we always kind of say we end up using the
language of the person in therelationship who is the higher
desire spouse, which is notalways the man.
Right, we see it when it'sreversed and there's all kinds
of emotional problems when it'sreversed because culture has
told them wait, something'swrong.
(26:50):
So for women who actually wantsexual intimacy, they're like oh
, I guess I'm bad, and there'sso many words.
I guess I'm weird, yeah Wellthere's so many other words that
get tacked on there that arenot podcast friendly, but we all
know what they are, thatthey're thinking these words in
there, that just because theydesire their husband, that
(27:14):
somehow that's a bad thing.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Right, well, yes, it makes them other things.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Which I think you brought up the word that's so
important, that which I thinkyou brought up the word that's
so important that purity culturemissed.
It was helping peopleunderstand desire, and desire
for sexual intimacy, or torecognize that that is happening
to you as a teenager, is normal.
It's sometimes overwhelming,and how and what do we do with
(27:44):
that?
While we're in this period, asyou said, addison, of
faithfulness, or Brad, and Icall it fasting, right, the Lord
asks us to not take part inthis until we're married.
But, like, the desire itselfisn't bad.
God actually designed you thatway.
But when we've preached thoseother messages, it sounds like
(28:04):
there's something wrong with thedesire and so, or well, the men
are allowed to have desire.
There's all these like mixed upmessages, but that is one of
the things you know, you said,you know, as you're raising your
kiddos and ours are all youngadults at this point but it's
desire is good, the desire isgood.
(28:25):
So then what do we do with ituntil marriage?
And I think that's a reallyimportant message to be helping
these kiddos realize, becausethe purity culture did not, it's
just said shut down desire.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
And I think you catch kind of the absurdity of purity
culture messaging, because it'sthis idea of I'm never supposed
to feel attraction, I'm neversupposed to feel what I call
lust, but I'm supposed toeventually get around to getting
married.
You know, it's like that'sreally silly, like like it's
like what are we?
What are you talking about?
(29:02):
You know, yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Like Kate said, we started when we were doing a lot
of premarital work.
We started using the termfasting, that's really good.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Because and then we've used it with our kids,
right, To kind of think throughwhat does it look like to forego
something that we really want?
Right, Because we fast fromfood.
We want the food, Everyone'sokay from going.
I want the food, but we'resaying, because of a greater
(29:33):
purpose, for right now I'm goingto not have that, and so that
shifts the concept a little bitand I think it's something that
kids can start to get a hold of,that we can talk about of going
.
You know what?
Because I want to have more ofmy relationship with God,
because I want to honor theperson I'm dating, I am going to
(29:57):
fast from this desire that Ihave.
But the fact that you have thedesire, that's good, right, it's
normal, and this has happened.
If somebody came to us saying,hey, we want to get married, but
I don't really have any desirefor this person, I'd be saying
I'm not sure you're supposed toget married, Biblically right.
(30:17):
Biblically, it says the reasonto get married is I'm burning in
passion for this person.
Yeah, we've ignored that rightand going no, no, no.
You're not supposed to burningin passion for this person.
Yeah, we've ignored that Rightand going no, no, no.
You're not supposed to burn inpassion until you are married.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
What Right Right Until just riffing on purity
culture.
I do want to get into the theraising kids part of it.
Um, I I feel like we have aunique opportunity to name some
of the messaging that peoplecarry in the marriage, that
they're embarrassed about orthat they're afraid to talk to
somebody about, and if we canget get it through for a
listener or two, I think itcould be valuable and I will ask
I'll be the idiot in the roomand just ask some questions Do
(30:58):
you find that spouses inChristian marriages struggle to
express appropriate sexualdesires, like what they would
like to do in the bedroom,because they associate it with
dirtiness or you know whatever?
Speaker 3 (31:13):
I would say even before it's what we want to do.
They struggle to express thatthey want to do it.
Most couples do not have alanguage to say desire sex with
you, my spouse, they, they don'tdon't call them my spouse, that
would be weird.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Okay, I'm trying to say husband wife right like they
don't.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
They don't have a language to do that in a healthy
way.
So it either becomes what Ikind of I used to do of like the
sherlock holmes are you in themood?
It may be tonight, like, andthen you know I'd hear her go
man, I had such a long day andbe like, oh okay, all right, I
guess not right automaticallyright right.
(31:59):
So like that kind of thingdoesn't work at all, right, that
creates all kinds of problems.
I used to do that all the time,or, yeah, got you know guys
kind of get pretty vulgar aboutit and inappropriate.
Sure, we see a lot of couplesthat just get into a routine.
(32:20):
Okay, thursday night is thatnight.
So, hey, it's thursday night,like that's it's Thursday night,
like that's it, which isn'tnecessarily a problem.
No, that's not terrible, butthere's still no dialogue,
there's still no place of beingable to even talk about that
desire.
So like that's the problem, thenyou kind of add in Addison,
like what do we do?
Yeah, how do we even have alanguage of I'd like to do this
(32:44):
thing?
And how do we even have alanguage of I'd like to do this
thing?
And how do we interact aroundthat?
And how much of that is basedon porn culture versus healthy
sexual interaction.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yeah, that's a challenge for sure, I think.
Those are the really, I thinkstarting with the language of
desire just in general.
But I also think you can learnto.
Any one of these things can belearned, but we have to
recognize where those negativemessages are coming from and
(33:16):
where it feels awkward anduncomfortable.
But the reality is we can workon a language of desire in
general.
A friend of ours, Jay Stringer,who wrote the book Unwanted he
talks about, can we talk aboutwhat other things we desire?
Because as humans and, I think,as Christians, desire is a word
many people are scared of,because if you desire something,
(33:39):
then is it not proportionate?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Often is where they're coming to it, from
different places and differentlevels, if you will.
And then just the fear of whatdoes it mean that my spouse
really wants to do this thing?
Is that okay?
What does that mean about me?
That's where those internalizedmessages of purity culture that
(34:04):
to be often.
It's often women who end upsaying if I want that, does that
make me bad?
Speaker 2 (34:13):
well, and then also saying where did you come up
with that?
Speaker 4 (34:16):
right that too, it all yeah I was gonna say that I
think maybe somebody would say Idesire X, I desire this, but if
they, if they unpack where itcame from.
It comes from pornography, itcomes from something they
watched in, or even like a movie, or even like an inappropriate
(34:37):
conversation, or even a and sohow do you kind of coach couples
through, through that?
Speaker 3 (34:43):
That that avenue.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
It's so great right?
Speaker 3 (34:49):
This is kind of my short answer and I want to hear
what you say because I know youwork with a lot of women on this
.
But my short answer is I wouldlike guys to think about why is
it that I want that thing?
Because I do see an attemptsometimes to go after their
arousal template, which is likethe type of pornography they
(35:10):
want, and people don't realizethat the type of pornography
they go to is very related totheir own past and wounds and
things that they're wrestlingwith.
They don't recognize that, andso then they try to bring that
into a marriage relationship andit doesn't work and it's not
(35:30):
healthy.
So that would be the place thatI would go.
Nope, nope.
We need to work through whyyou're looking to do that, and
that includes fetish things,that includes power things.
There's a lot of differentelements that that brings in,
and entering that into amarriage is often very unhealthy
and it ends up not beinghealthy.
(35:50):
Now, what's different than thatis some of the sexual acts, and
I'm not going to be toospecific here, but there are
various sexual acts that peopleenjoy and have, and, yes, they
are created and seen inpornography, but that's because
(36:12):
there's only so many things thatyou do with the body, right?
So, yes, are they replicatingsomething that other people do?
Sure, but that doesn't meanthat's what it's all about,
right, and so I do think therecan be places where certain acts
can be healthy in marriage, butit's all about our motivation
(36:33):
of why do I want that, that weneed to start with, why is that?
And then, how do we make itsafe for both people,
emotionally safe, physicallysafe for both people, for both?
people emotionally safe,physically safe for both people.
That's the key of how do webring any of that kind of stuff
healthy into our relationship.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Sure, yeah, I think the same can be said for women
as well, and, believe it or not,the rate of women watching
pornography is constantly on therise as well.
It's just so accessible, and weall have wounds and we all cope
, and so it's not unfamiliar towomen, and lots of women I work
(37:14):
with have experiencedpornography.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Or reading pornography, if not watching.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yes, but believe it or not, viewing it as well, and
so I think you know what youjust said can be very true too.
We need to think about where isthat coming from?
And then I think the questionis, like looking at it, of if
I'm really opposed to something.
Is there a reason Right and I'mnot talking about the things
(37:43):
that we're talking about thatare fringe and scary and power
and somebody's you know doesn'tfeel safe.
But if your spouse wants to dosomething and like, are you dead
set against it and is there areason, that's absolutely okay.
Is it something you're like Idon't know, I might be willing
to try it, but I'm not certain.
(38:03):
You're like I don't know, Imight be willing to try it, but
I'm not certain.
Or is it a yes, right?
And I think, reminding ourselvesthat we can go through that
process where we can askourselves where am I on the
scale with this, so that I canunderstand my own self, my own
fears, my own whatever, and askthose questions, because I think
(38:25):
it's a normal process forpeople to be like I don't know.
If we are told impurity cultureand if we did wait, not saying
that the people that didn't,that's the end of the world by
any means.
But for those of us who didwait, it's like, well, now I'm
just supposed to be open to allthe things and I don't really
(38:46):
understand all the things andwhy would we do that?
And right there becomes thisclosed off, like we didn't
educate, and so now it's like Idon't know.
So I think we have to kind ofgo through a kindness process of
why is this a no, and that'sokay, but I think it's important
to go through.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
How do you guys coach couples to have?
I mean, this is probably aone-hour answer all by itself,
but how do you kind of coachcouples to have those
conversations?
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Yeah, so it depends on what stage they're in.
You know, a lot of times we'reending up talking to this to
premarital couples who haven'texperienced it yet and they're
just trying to go wait.
How do we get our heads aroundthis?
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Poor premarital couples.
We just go there, right, we'relike, this isn't going to help
if we aren't going to go there?
Speaker 3 (39:38):
So we're pretty forward in kind of saying, hey,
let's remember, this is aneducational process and it is
going to be something you learnaround your lifetime as a couple
together, so do not expect itto be amazing, glorious, perfect
the first 10 times, right, itis a process of learning.
(39:59):
So that's first, and then it isstarting to talk about a.
Do you feel a freedom of whatthey talk about in Corinthians?
This verse in 1 Corinthians 7is used against people so often,
but it is meant for freedom.
My body is my wife's and shegets to enjoy and explore that.
(40:26):
I get to enjoy and explore herbody.
It's meant for freedom.
That verse has been misused tomean responsibility.
Oh, you have to give me youright, like a taking.
It's not supposed to be that.
It is supposed to be.
Look, this is enjoyable, thisis passion.
Let's explore each other'sbodies in freedom, not
(40:50):
obligation.
Right, that's where it getstwisted and I think if we can
learn that there is beauty inthat, that there is.
You know we encourage couplesto read Song of Songs together
because there's such beauty andpassion in the Bible about
(41:12):
desire and sexuality that iswritten into that poem that you
read it as a married couplewho's had sex, you go.
Oh, that's what that metaphormeant.
I had no idea when you saw itearlier.
Those kind of things are soimportant that we start to learn
(41:33):
how to enjoy sexuality.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Mm-hmm, I think there's, yeah, I think there's a
huge part that impacts this isjust body right, and I think I
end up working I'm just going tospeak for myself with a lot of
women who you can't be a womanin the United States and not
have trauma around your body.
I haven't met one yet, andwe're talking about the gamut of
(41:59):
how people appear, althoughthat doesn't really matter, and
I think that is a challenge formuch of this, and I am uncertain
how much purity culture playedinto that, but I do think it did
, yeah, and so that is one thingI would mention too of just
needing to do some healing workaround my body in general is
(42:22):
good, because many women do notfeel that way.
It has not been expressed tothem that way, and I'm not
saying there isn't the samemessage for some men, but I
don't think as many men got thatin purity culture as women did,
so that's another one that wekind of have to tackle when
(42:43):
we're helping couples throughthat.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
Well, again, I mentioned that I think purity
culture lifts up kind ofasexuality as the ideal.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
And I think if that's true, you're almost punished.
If you're an attractive person.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
I mean that sounds weird, but it's almost like
that's your fault or somethingand that's really confusing
messaging.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
And there's then harm on both sides of that message.
Right, yeah, for sure.
If you are that attractiveperson, then it's like oh, my
body is sinful because it'sdrawing all these people in
looks and that's bad.
Right.
So they're being taught thattheir body is now bad.
They're also being taught theirbody is now bad, they're also
being taught.
Their body gets them gets themseen and heard, and and so that
(43:30):
becomes its own.
Yeah and then there's this otherside that so many people
believe that they're not theworld standard of beautiful.
Then they don't.
Their body doesn't have anyvalue and it needs to be hidden.
And so there's such strongmessages there.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
Yeah, and maybe your teen boy is like sitting in
youth group and is hearing theother guys say like yeah, you
know girls, whatever.
And they're thinking like, yeah, girls right, yeah, absolutely.
That's happening to me too.
But, like you know the struggle, what you're saying is like the
messaging exists for girls,also for guys.
(44:10):
This like you almost and thisis where, like the messaging of
purity culture is such like aninternal battle, because it's
like the good is also the bad,you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
It's like the bad is also the good um but I want you
to think through what I know,what I was taught when I was in
youth group, and what is told tomen.
So often in those situations,the answer that is given is you
have to just bounce your eyesoff of this person who is
(44:40):
attractive.
Now I want to go on record.
There is a place for bouncingeyes.
It is for the cheerleaders thatpop up on the game that you're
watching.
It is for the billboard thatyou're driving by.
That's inappropriate.
There are places for bouncingyour eyes, but think about the
dehumanization that happens whenit's taught in a youth group
(45:02):
setting, when it's taught in achurch setting that now I can't
even look at you.
That's so inappropriate, right?
Instead of teaching and this iswhat I tried to teach my boys is
great, that person's attractive.
There's nothing wrong with thembeing attractive.
They are also a child of Godand we need to see their
(45:23):
humanness, not just theirphysical appearance.
And we can't just ignore thembecause oh wait, I might have
thoughts.
That's your responsibility tocontrol those thoughts, not just
dehumanize them and pretendthey don't exist because I'm
seeing a person here, right?
(45:44):
So I think that message is soimportant that we communicate to
boys like, yeah, it's yourresponsibility.
If you find somebody attractive, fine they're.
They're attractive, that's.
There's nothing wrong with thembeing attractive.
What do?
Speaker 2 (45:58):
we do about that Attracted to them.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
It's just then.
Where do we go?
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Where do you go with that?
Speaker 4 (46:05):
yeah, I think that is , and maybe we could start to
transition into the kid piece,because it's like communicating
the difference between like,attraction and lust, because
like, so good, I'm not even sureif, if a teenager asked me
what's the difference inattraction and lust, I, I, you
know I experience attraction tomy wife.
Yep, also, it, it's also.
It's also like I don't know howto, how do I parse that for
(46:27):
them?
Speaker 2 (46:27):
You know what I mean Like and being married is tough
because it's like it's can youstill lust in your marriage?
Yes, but like those lines arevery different because you guys
have mutually decided to do lifetogether and therefore marriage
and sexual intimacy together.
I think lust and this is goingto sound very drastic, but Dan
(46:50):
Allender says it this way and Ithink it kind of gives a
different perspective Lust iswanting to consume just people.
Right, we can lust after lustlots of things, and I think
that's very different than wow,I found that person attractive
(47:10):
and you know.
And then I dealt with mythoughts and moved on, and maybe
, brad, you can speak to thatmore.
Then I stayed there and Iallowed myself to get to the
point where I want to consumethat person, and I think that
can give a very drasticdifferent picture.
(47:30):
What would you say, babe?
Speaker 3 (47:32):
So I deal with this a lot when I'm dealing with men
with unwanted sexual behavior iswhere is this line of lust?
And I will say I think most ofus guys have trouble defining it
, but we absolutely know whenit's happening.
Right, it is that it's thatkind of gray area where it is
hard to know, like, exactly howto put the words to it, but we
(47:57):
know when our eyes go past wow,that's an attractive person to
ooh, I want that Right and Iwant to possess that.
I want to take that.
I wish I could have that right.
There is a place that that isdifferent, and I always point to
the temptation of Jesus.
I would encourage yourlisteners to go and read
(48:19):
especially the second temptationof Jesus, where he is brought
to the top of the temple, andthe temptation specifically is
look at all that is before you.
I will give you all of this andmore Now.
We only have to flip back acouple of chapters to know
Solomon, to know what the kingsof Israel got, and that includes
(48:42):
what 600 concubines and morewives.
You can't tell me that Satandidn't utilize the fact that all
of these women could be his.
He was fully human as part ofthat that is part of the
temptation.
The temptation itself is notsin.
(49:03):
This could be yours.
Nope, I want somethingdifferent, right?
So we have to separate out thatjust seeing something is not
sin.
It's then going ooh, I wantthat, I want to possess that, I
want to take that for mine.
That isn't yours.
(49:25):
That's where lust starts tocome in.
Speaker 4 (49:28):
You're reminding me of a really good Lewis quote.
Cs Lewis has this quote aboutthis idea and he says in the
Four Loves he says we use a mostunfortunate idiom when we say
of a lustful man prowling thestreets that he quote, wants a
woman.
Strictly speaking, a woman isis just what he does not want.
He wants the pleasure for whicha woman happens to be the
(49:50):
necessary piece of apparatus.
He cares how much he caresabout the woman, as much as such
may be gauged by his attitudetoward her five minutes after
fruition.
And he puts in parentheses onedoes not keep the carton after
one has smoked the cigarettes Ithink that's man that is.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
That is spot on the difference between desire and
lust.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
Yeah, yeah right, because a a desire pushes you
towards someone.
It pushes you towardsrelationship with someone.
It cares about their emotions,it cares about their personhood.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
It cares about them right yeah, and I would argue,
even in marriage.
I know we're kind of startingto talk about teens, but even in
marriage we as guys but bothsides have to be cautious of
when we are coming to our spousejust for sexual release right.
And not for the engagement ofintimacy that is the wholeness
(50:49):
of sexual desire, right, becauseI think there are times and I'm
not going to define this as sin, but I think there are times
that I hear I work with guysmostly, so I hear guys going and
saying, oh yeah, well, if shejust did that, then everything
would be fine, I wouldn't bethinking about pornography.
That's a lie, right.
That's a lie that we havebelieved in this and we have to
(51:14):
be cautious of just seeing ourspouse as a way towards sexual
release, and that comes out ofexactly that quote.
Speaker 4 (51:23):
Yeah, and it's a, it's a baby of purity culture,
right?
Because if my wife is thesolution to my sexual problems,
if getting married, is married,is the solution to my sexual
problems, then if marriagedidn't solve my sexual problems,
I must've bought a bad product,Right, and that's.
That's insane.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
It's insane, but it is so often something I hear.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
And I want to be cautious, like there are women
who struggle this thing, likeit's not always gender specific,
but I do think purity culturekind of had women mostly in one
camp and then mostly in another,but sometimes it's reversed.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Because we do see a fair amount of couples where
that's the case as well.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
Yep.
Thank you guys so much.
We hope that you enjoyed that.
It was certainly a really funconversation that we got to have
.
It's something that we honestlywork with so many of our
clients around yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Sadly.
Speaker 3 (52:28):
Sadly, yeah, sadly, sadly, true, but one of the
things that happens when you'redoing marriage work is you end
up talking to people aboutsexual intimacy.
Of course right, because thatis a part of marriage.
And just more and more as we'vebecome more aware of where some
of the hurts and harms ofsexual intimacy are, we just see
(52:50):
some of the tentacles of thatside of unhealthy teaching from
the church.
Should be healthy teaching andhealthy encouragement and
healthy, you know, relationshipthings, and we just see so much
guilt and shame sometimes comingto marriages where you want to
(53:14):
be promoting that freedom.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Right.
Speaker 3 (53:16):
So we hope that that was beneficial for you.
I really encourage you to talkwith your spouse through like
what did they learn about sexand intimacy as they were
growing up?
Is it something that?
Speaker 2 (53:30):
they were taught what did their parents model, even
if they didn't grow up in thechurch.
Like me.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
Right, like what were the tentacles of this?
So I was recently listening toDevil in the Deep Blue Sea, a
podcast put out by ChristianityToday that was talking all about
the satanic panic of the 80sand the interesting thing.
I mean, yes, it certainlyimpacted church culture and
church kids more than others,but they're talking about how it
(54:03):
reached into kind of allculture.
You know on Oprah and it was onyou know a lot of news
organizations about these, youknow satanic things and so, just
because you may not have beenraised in the church, the
tentacles of some of theexpectations of you sexually,
(54:24):
whether that be purity orsomething are still there, right
, and so I think it's such aninteresting conversation to
think about that and how itimpacted you and then your
relationship.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (54:37):
So we'll certainly be talking more about this.
We enjoyed having theconversation.
Until next time, I'm BradAldrich.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
And I'm Kate Aldrich.
Be kind and take care of eachother.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Still Becoming One is a production of Aldrich
Ministries.
For more information about Bradand Kate's coaching ministry
courses and speakingopportunities, you can find us
at aldrichministriescom Forpodcast show notes and links to
resources in all of our socialmedia.
Be sure to visit us atstillbecomingonecom and don't
(55:12):
forget to like this episodewherever you get your podcasts.
And be sure to follow us tocontinue your journey on Still
Becoming One.
Welcome to the Still Becoming One podcast.
We are Brad and Kate.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
In our more than 20 years of marriage, we've
survived both dark times andexperienced restoration.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Now as a licensed marriage counselor and
relationship coaches.
We help couples to regain hopeand joy.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
We invite you to journey with us, as we are Still
Becoming One.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Let's start the conversation.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Hello everyone, Welcome back to Still Becoming
One.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome back.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
We are so glad that you're here today.
We had an awesome conversationthat we are sharing with you
that we actually got hosted onthe Grace Community Church
podcast a local church to usthat we've worked with man for a
(00:56):
couple of years now in doingvarious things, and they wanted
to have a conversation aboutpurity culture and how purity
culture is impacting marriages.
So we asked them if we couldkind of cross post, because
their podcast mostly goes out totheir attenders and obviously
(01:21):
ours is a different audiencethan that.
So but we thought thisconversation was so valuable in
really thinking through if youor your spouse, or especially if
one of you, was raised inpurity culture, but even if both
of you were, you know, tryingto think through what is it,
where's it coming from, and howdoes it still reach into
(01:45):
marriages?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
How did it impact us at the time?
How did we decipher what wasall being told to us?
If you were a part of purityculture and figuring you know,
boiling it down, figuring outwhat you believed about sex,
marriage, sexual intimacy andyourself, as a sexual creature
(02:10):
through purity culture, becauseI think there's a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
There is.
There is a lot conversationthat we're kind of talking about
.
You know how it impacts us anda little bit in how it's
impacting us as parents as well.
We kind of get into a littlebit.
So we hope that you enjoy thisconversation with Pastor Addison
(02:35):
Roberts from GCC and we willsee you next time on Still
Becoming One.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
All right, Brad and Kate Aldridge, thanks so much
for popping in and talking aboutthis, and obviously we've.
We've had you here on the GCCpodcast before, and then you
guys also have your own.
So talk a little bit about whoyou are, what you do for the one
audience, and then also aboutsome of the other podcast stuff,
(03:03):
and then we'll get into wherewe're going.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Kate and I are marriage andfamily coaches and counselors.
I'm a licensed marriage andfamily therapist and we have
been passionate a bit aboutmarriage ministry for oh man 15
years, a long time now andhonestly, that passion came from
(03:30):
seeing God change, radicallychange our marriage and just
then starting to talk to eachother and then to our friends
and some of those things aboutwhat was different and how it
started to grow, and that justcontinued us going.
Wait a minute, god's design formarriage is so much better than
(03:55):
we have, I think, limitedourself to, and we knew so many
people, we had so many friendswho had just kind of settled
into.
Well, I guess this is whatmarriage is, and we were very
passionate about saying, hey,wait a minute, there is a path
to still become one together andcontinue on that journey.
(04:17):
And so that's where the name ofour podcast Still Becoming One
came out of is this idea that weare on a journey of marriage
together and we can keep goingand growing and learning as we
learn and heal ourselves, as wegrow closer to God together and
as we work on intimacy andconnection together.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Yeah, Right and you guys are popping.
I'm sorry, katie, I cut you off.
I'm used to one host thing, ohyou're fine.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Nope, Keep going.
Oh yeah, I was going to saything Are you going to edit that
?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
You're fine.
Nope, keep going.
Oh yeah, I was going to say youguys are spending some time
with us here in January on the17th marriage conference.
We might not retain people tillthe very end, so you want to
give a 30 second pitch on whatthat is?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Go for it.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Oh, ok, there we go.
We're excited to spend time withyour church community or
anybody that would come, andwe're just going to be talking
about the different areas ofintimacy in marriage and kind of
digging through them.
But I hope people will give ita shot because I would say it's
(05:23):
not the typical way people diveinto that and I think it's a
really applicable way and reallywe want to tailor it to you,
believe it or not.
So yeah, we're going to bespending some time with your
community and talking aboutthose topics together.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
So we talk about how do you actually do emotional
intimacy?
People throw that term aroundbut then what?
does it mean?
Why do you actually do it?
What does that look like?
Then we talk about spiritualintimacy.
What even is spiritual intimacywhen we put it in the terms of
a couple, and how can a coupleuse that to grow together?
(06:02):
Then we talk about sexualintimacy, which is kind of where
we're going to get into alittle bit today, and we talk
about what does it look like tofigure out what healthy sexual
intimacy is as a couple?
And then we do a fourth onethat's kind of unique, that we
call story intimacy.
Story intimacy and just thereal quick is we see that every
(06:32):
one of us has a story that we'vegrown up in, that have shaped
who we are both beautiful, goodthings, but also hard and
wounding things.
And while our spouse oftenknows the facts about those
stories, they often miss thedeeper things that still come
into today and what we find atthose our stories, our past have
(06:54):
written some things in ourheart that still interact today
and when we work with couples wesee them stepping on each
other's stories, not becausethey don't care, but because
those things still becometriggers and become wounds.
So learning how to interactwith that is the goal.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Well, that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, that's exciting.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Which leads us really well into our topic today.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Yeah, so our topic today came from.
Actually, I was listening to apodcast and it was a more
secular podcast and it was anauthor who had written a book
and they were talking about GenZ, by choice or by lack of
intimate relationships more thankind of any previous generation
.
That a, I think.
I think the stat was one fourthof 16 to 28 year old Gen Z, or
(07:52):
say that they've never had asexual encounter.
And and the podcaster mentionedwas was actually a secular
person.
I'm always fascinated when asecular person is speaking
against pornography because it'salways like, yeah, and and they
said, she said, she said, youknow, the sad reality is is that
(08:14):
the only positive vision that alot of these kids get, where
sex is reflected positively is,is in pornography and that is
not a realistic depiction ofsexual intimacy.
And that led to me calling Bradand saying, hey, what are you
saying, what are you doing?
And let us down a conversationabout how I think the fear for
(08:35):
me as a parent, as a, as a.
You know, I'm 36, our kids are10.
I, one of them, just turnedeight, so I've been, I've been
saying 10, seven and two for awhole year, 10, eight, and will
be three on here on about fivedays and a realization of.
I was raised in what would becalled purity culture and I saw
(08:56):
the landmines of it andexperienced some of the
landmines of it, and watched mycolleagues and my classmates in
Bible college experience some ofthe landmines of it and
experienced some of thelandmines of it and watched my
colleagues and my classmates inBible college experience some of
the landmines of it.
And as I prepare to go throughand navigate that with my kids,
I'm going okay, I don't wantthem to have those emotions, but
(09:17):
I don't.
How do I?
I only have what I have.
You know, I only have like moreor less work for me.
You know what I mean but youknow, with some landmines and so
what I'm hoping to kind ofwrestle with, and I know I said
a lot and if you want to picksomething off and say something
to it, go ahead.
But let's talk about purityculture.
What is?
Maybe people are listening andlike I don't know what purity
(09:38):
culture is.
What are we talking about whenwe say purity culture?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
That's a great question.
How would you define it?
The reason I want you to defineit first is I'm very
transparent about I didn't growup in purity culture, but I was
a youth pastor towards the endof purity culture.
I mean Joshua Harris's book wascoming out, so there was still
and I definitely have influencesand thoughts but, I, didn't
grow up as a kid in it.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
I'm the one who grew up in it, for sure, and had that
influence of the church tryingto figure out how do they get
around the sexual revolution ofthe 60s and communicate.
Well, that, hey, wait a minute.
The value of waiting untilmarriage is still important.
That's where it came out of theheart of it is super good,
(10:30):
right.
It is the church saying wecan't ignore this anymore
because forever it had just been.
Everybody knew you're supposedto wait till marriage and even
if people didn't, there was somuch cultural pressure around
that the expectation was stillthat people did.
That was changing in the 70sand 80s and because of the
(10:53):
sexual revolution, and thechurch was trying to respond to
that by saying no, wait a minute, we still have to wait until
marriage and trying to say whythey never did a good job of
saying why what they did was usefear to say that if you do not
meet some standard, that youaren't worth anything anymore.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
And so what they tended to say was sex is evil.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
What they tended to say was sex is evil, sex is bad,
sex is so bad that we don'twant you to even think about it
until you're married, and theneverything's fine and we don't
really want to talk about itthen either.
That's kind of the message thatended up happening.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
And I would say, beyond that, a messaging of
almost a canonization of what Iwould call an asexual preference
.
Correct, you know, it's likethe good kids in the youth group
were the ones that were like,yeah, I don't have any desire to
masturbate, I don't have anydesire to lust, I don't have it.
(11:59):
You know A hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
And you are exactly right.
A canonization like that's theideal is that you just don't
have any sexual desire.
We turn all of that off untilyou get married and then somehow
it magically turns it back on.
And you can tell from mylanguage where we run into this
all the time is in marriedcouples who are now struggling
(12:23):
sexually and they don't know why.
And those messages are sointernalized of.
You know I'm going to be bad ifI do this, if I actually even
enjoy sex somehow I'm bad, likesome of those things.
Even though it is in aChristian marriage context,
they're still believing andfeeling many of those messages
(12:47):
that they grew up with.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I think too, like we came out of you were talking
about the 60s and 70s, but I dothink it's worth mentioning
there was the sexual revolution,and then there was the other
side that was like let's nottalk about it at all, and so you
had these two extremes.
So you're either growing up inone or the other, but I think a
lot of times, the let's not talkabout it at all, and so you had
these two extremes.
So you're either growing up inone or the other, but I think a
lot of times, the let's not talkabout it at all.
(13:10):
I'm going to overgeneralizehere.
We're more of the church peopleand so then out of that, I
believe, came this need of like.
Let's talk about it more.
But the way purity culture choseto talk about it, I think was a
really brave attempt.
But I think, as you said,addison, it led to some of those
(13:33):
landmines and we weren'tactually giving kids the
information that they needed andwe were then using that fear.
I think it—I have lots ofthoughts on this.
But I think it also led and I'dbe curious, brad, to hear what
you think about this of like itprobably ramped up pornography.
(13:54):
Oh, because it didn't give theright information.
And then there is what if I dohave this desire?
What if I don't understand whatsex is?
Well, my parents aren'tnecessarily going to be the ones
to tell me.
so I'm going to go figure it out, or somebody's going to tell me
at school, and then I'm goingto go explore something.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
No, I mean 100%.
And I've been pretty open withmy journey with pornography,
which started for me around 12.
And I was the church kid.
I was the good kid.
My parents, you know, my dad,was an elder Like I was in
church all the time.
I was a youth group kid, I wasa young life kid, I all of those
(14:37):
things on the outside.
I was the purity culture ideal,100%.
Everyone from my childhoodwould have said that.
But I was wrestling withpornography from 12 on and I
remember it was probably around15 after I had been years in
(14:59):
pornography.
Now okay, I'm old enough thatmost of that was magazines at
that time, but still I wasinvolved in it.
Um, I had already hadgirlfriends that you know had
had been somewhat, you know,active with, although not
sexually active, thankfully, um,and it was at that point
(15:22):
probably like 15, almost gettinginto like 16 and driver's
license and stuff that I thinkmy dad kind of entered my room
at one point let me know thatwas it and, to be honest, like,
yes, I read the whole bookbecause, of course, right, but I
knew absolutely a whole lotmore already learned, like I
already educated myself on allof these things way too late
(16:08):
right.
And then obviously what hadhappened?
Like his I love my father isnot saying anything against him,
but his body posture of backingout, incredibly embarrassed,
certainly did not welcome moreconversation right like, and
that was it.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
We never had a single conversation about it yeah, I
mean, my experience was raisedin a single mother home.
You know, um, and I don't.
Yeah, you talk about like thetalk or whatever, and I and I
think it was just like I thinkone of my sisters who are seven
years older than me said like ifyou ever do anything, wear a
condom.
And I was like OK, you know,yeah, and that was that was it,
(16:54):
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Wow, yeah, and I think, I think that's one of the
first things that purityculture unfortunately Didn't do.
Well, it's actually.
The information is too latebelieve it or not?
Purity culture really impactedthe youth group ages, which is
understandable.
You're not going to do this ina, you know, like Sunday school
(17:19):
setting with younger kids, butthe reality is kids between
eight and 10 already need theirparents to be helping them
understand their body, helpingthem understand, like in age,
appropriate ways what's comingRight.
And many times I do thinkfamilies are kind of waiting for
youth groups to do the talkbecause, well then, we don't
(17:41):
have to do it right.
And I will tell you, brad and Iwere passionate about we're
having these talks with our kids.
At the same time I rememberwhen I was about ready to talk
to my daughter, thinking I can'tdo this, I can't do this.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Oh, it's terrifying.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
I don't want to tell her these things because she's
going to figure out what her dadand I are doing, Like there are
pieces that are veryuncomfortable even for people
who feel how important it is andhow important, but I think
that's one of the first thingsyou know you need to be having
age appropriate conversationswith your kids about their
bodies, and that it's good, butand I think that it's good is.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
I don't want to stop you from what you're saying,
that it's good.
Stop you from what you'resaying that it's good it's is is
such a thing there because itwas like the way, the way I
think the message of purityculture was that abstinence is
good sex is not right and and,and it was this idea.
There's this, uh, famousillustration that happened of of
(18:40):
passing a rose around a roomwith 400 students in it.
Right.
And then you know I've never inthere with it or whatever, but
I can imagine you know it's likeand it's like well, who's going
to want the rose?
Sorry, I need to explain morethe idea of altar call teenagers
pass a rose around the room,the rose gets beaten to heck and
(19:01):
then the guy speaking gets itback and it's all damaged and
it's like well, who's going towant this rose?
And I think the messaging ofpurity culture a lot of times
was well, you're investing inyour future marriage.
And it was this idea that I amdelivering a product to my wife
and the purity of this productis dependent on my decisions.
(19:25):
And I was in my I was 21 beforeI heard a preacher say it's not
about delivering some product,it's about practicing,
practicing faithfulness inadvance, like it's.
It's purity is actually about aself-control practice more than
(19:46):
it is about delivery of a pureproduct.
And I.
That was a change for me,because it was this idea of oh,
if, once you get married, you'recarrying all your sexual
partners into marriage andyou're yeah, I mean you.
You've heard all this stuffI'll tell you, addison the.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
The analogy that I remember seeing in youth group
and having then to work throughmyself is the band-aid principle
, one where they stuck aband-aid on somebody and then
ripped it off and stuck it onsomebody else and ripped it off
and stuck like and did that longenough and then it doesn't
stick.
(20:26):
And the message in there was ifyou have sex with all these
people, then sex isn't somethingspecial for your marriage and
stick on your yeah, well, and ityeah, because they were talking
about attachment and connectionand all these things that
basically were saying, if you dothis, sex won't work later.
But the promise and this iswhat we see so often in couples
(20:49):
now that it's this promise ofwait a minute, I did it right.
Why is this so hard now?
It was supposed to be easy andgood when we followed all the
rules.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yes, we've dealt with that quite a bit People, yes,
and then they've struggled andit's like but wait, the promise
was Right.
If we did this all correctly,sex would be easy and amazing.
And unfortunately, we also soldthat.
We sold that story as well.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
We did.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
We did.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yeah.
And I think the tragedy theretoo I don't want to stop you
from what you're about to say,Brad the tragedy there too is, I
think, sometimes that thatpromise might deliver for a man,
but but but not for theirspouse Right, and we've actually
had both believe it or not, butyou're not wrong that that's
(21:41):
the more common that we hear andI was going to say and then
I'll let you say whatever you'regoing to say, honey but um,
that, the whole rose principle,the band-aid maybe not as much,
but I have heard the rose oneand many times it was directed
more women women, girls in thegroup than it was at the guys,
(22:02):
and that's another thing I thinkpurity culture has to recognize
.
It put a lot of pressure on thegirls, the women.
It was putting it on the guystoo, but there was some sort of
well, because that was also thetime of dress modestly, Don't,
you, don't want to cause anotherperson to stumble.
All of that was also a part ofpurity culture, and so there was
(22:26):
this sense of I am responsiblefor my brother meaning brother
in Christ for causing them tostumble.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
And so then, I think that brought in that challenge
as well, which speaks to whatyou were just saying, addison,
of that could have worked formen men potentially, but then
there are a lot of women whothen struggle.
I absolutely.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I don't think we can talk about purity culture
without talking about the genderdifferences in that because
there is a really strongidentity of that women have to
protect the men because somehowwe're not strong enough to
(23:14):
actually not sin if they'rewearing a tank top right?
That message was sent so oftenand I just think how twisted
that message is and I see it allthe time in men that I'm
working with through dealingwith pornography or unwanted
sexual behaviors is there isthis idea that they are not
(23:39):
responsible if they're beingtempted by something.
And it's shifted it that wetold youth group women don't
tempt any of the men, but wenever really told the boys like,
hey, that's your responsibilityIf you're tempted, you have to
think about where your eyes areright, because the message is
(23:59):
about lust in scripture, notreally about temptation.
Now, did we teach our kids todress modestly?
Yes, we taught all of our kidsthat boys and girls right, and
so we care about those things.
I don't want to say we ignorethat.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
But we came from the perspective of this is you.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
We did it for them and their bodies, not because of
what they're going to causesomebody else to do and we
wanted them.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
our focus with them was we want you to respect
yourself, body included.
And so we like, and we got to apoint where we let them be more
expressive with their clothing,but after we had made that a
priority, especially when theywere younger and, like, not even
sure why you're wearing theseoutfits or what you're doing.
(24:50):
And then right, but that wasour.
We want you to respect yourselfenough not to be showing parts
of you that the generalpopulation does not need to see,
kind of thing, but not becauseyou're going to make one person
or another stumble the otherplace that this still plays out,
even before we get to thinkingabout our kids, is how it plays
(25:14):
out in marriage, because thereis still in purity culture.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
it is taught that men , you are going to pursue this
and want this and it is up tothe women to be the limiting
factor.
And there's this communicationthat says in marriage, even guys
you're going to want it all thetime and women, you probably
(25:41):
really won't like it a whole lot, but it's your job to make your
husband happy.
There's so many of thosemessages that have been very
inappropriate about what sexualintimacy in marriage actually is
.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Yeah, there's an inbuilt objectification, it's
built into the scaffolding of it.
It's this idea of, yeah, it'sjust this, oh you know, ready
for the wedding night, and theguy's going, yeah, and the
girl's going, it's going to.
You know, it's just like, it'salmost cartoonish Like and it's
and I.
So you see people on everylevel of well, I thought my
(26:25):
husband would be interested inme and he's not.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Right, we always kind of say we end up using the
language of the person in therelationship who is the higher
desire spouse, which is notalways the man.
Right, we see it when it'sreversed and there's all kinds
of emotional problems when it'sreversed because culture has
told them wait, something'swrong.
(26:50):
So for women who actually wantsexual intimacy, they're like oh
, I guess I'm bad, and there'sso many words.
I guess I'm weird, yeah Wellthere's so many other words that
get tacked on there that arenot podcast friendly, but we all
know what they are, thatthey're thinking these words in
there, that just because theydesire their husband, that
(27:14):
somehow that's a bad thing.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Right, well, yes, it makes them other things.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Which I think you brought up the word that's so
important, that which I thinkyou brought up the word that's
so important that purity culturemissed.
It was helping peopleunderstand desire, and desire
for sexual intimacy, or torecognize that that is happening
to you as a teenager, is normal.
It's sometimes overwhelming,and how and what do we do with
(27:44):
that?
While we're in this period, asyou said, addison, of
faithfulness, or Brad, and Icall it fasting, right, the Lord
asks us to not take part inthis until we're married.
But, like, the desire itselfisn't bad.
God actually designed you thatway.
But when we've preached thoseother messages, it sounds like
(28:04):
there's something wrong with thedesire and so, or well, the men
are allowed to have desire.
There's all these like mixed upmessages, but that is one of
the things you know, you said,you know, as you're raising your
kiddos and ours are all youngadults at this point but it's
desire is good, the desire isgood.
(28:25):
So then what do we do with ituntil marriage?
And I think that's a reallyimportant message to be helping
these kiddos realize, becausethe purity culture did not, it's
just said shut down desire.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
And I think you catch kind of the absurdity of purity
culture messaging, because it'sthis idea of I'm never supposed
to feel attraction, I'm neversupposed to feel what I call
lust, but I'm supposed toeventually get around to getting
married.
You know, it's like that'sreally silly, like like it's
like what are we?
What are you talking about?
(29:02):
You know, yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Like Kate said, we started when we were doing a lot
of premarital work.
We started using the termfasting, that's really good.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Because and then we've used it with our kids,
right, To kind of think throughwhat does it look like to forego
something that we really want?
Right, Because we fast fromfood.
We want the food, Everyone'sokay from going.
I want the food, but we'resaying, because of a greater
(29:33):
purpose, for right now I'm goingto not have that, and so that
shifts the concept a little bitand I think it's something that
kids can start to get a hold of,that we can talk about of going
.
You know what?
Because I want to have more ofmy relationship with God,
because I want to honor theperson I'm dating, I am going to
(29:57):
fast from this desire that Ihave.
But the fact that you have thedesire, that's good, right, it's
normal, and this has happened.
If somebody came to us saying,hey, we want to get married, but
I don't really have any desirefor this person, I'd be saying
I'm not sure you're supposed toget married, Biblically right.
(30:17):
Biblically, it says the reasonto get married is I'm burning in
passion for this person.
Yeah, we've ignored that rightand going no, no, no.
You're not supposed to burningin passion for this person.
Yeah, we've ignored that Rightand going no, no, no.
You're not supposed to burn inpassion until you are married.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
What Right Right Until just riffing on purity
culture.
I do want to get into the theraising kids part of it.
Um, I I feel like we have aunique opportunity to name some
of the messaging that peoplecarry in the marriage, that
they're embarrassed about orthat they're afraid to talk to
somebody about, and if we canget get it through for a
listener or two, I think itcould be valuable and I will ask
I'll be the idiot in the roomand just ask some questions Do
(30:58):
you find that spouses inChristian marriages struggle to
express appropriate sexualdesires, like what they would
like to do in the bedroom,because they associate it with
dirtiness or you know whatever?
Speaker 3 (31:13):
I would say even before it's what we want to do.
They struggle to express thatthey want to do it.
Most couples do not have alanguage to say desire sex with
you, my spouse, they, they don'tdon't call them my spouse, that
would be weird.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Okay, I'm trying to say husband wife right like they
don't.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
They don't have a language to do that in a healthy
way.
So it either becomes what Ikind of I used to do of like the
sherlock holmes are you in themood?
It may be tonight, like, andthen you know I'd hear her go
man, I had such a long day andbe like, oh okay, all right, I
guess not right automaticallyright right.
(31:59):
So like that kind of thingdoesn't work at all, right, that
creates all kinds of problems.
I used to do that all the time,or, yeah, got you know guys
kind of get pretty vulgar aboutit and inappropriate.
Sure, we see a lot of couplesthat just get into a routine.
(32:20):
Okay, thursday night is thatnight.
So, hey, it's thursday night,like that's it's Thursday night,
like that's it, which isn'tnecessarily a problem.
No, that's not terrible, butthere's still no dialogue,
there's still no place of beingable to even talk about that
desire.
So like that's the problem, thenyou kind of add in Addison,
like what do we do?
Yeah, how do we even have alanguage of I'd like to do this
(32:44):
thing?
And how do we even have alanguage of I'd like to do this
thing?
And how do we interact aroundthat?
And how much of that is basedon porn culture versus healthy
sexual interaction.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yeah, that's a challenge for sure, I think.
Those are the really, I thinkstarting with the language of
desire just in general.
But I also think you can learnto.
Any one of these things can belearned, but we have to
recognize where those negativemessages are coming from and
(33:16):
where it feels awkward anduncomfortable.
But the reality is we can workon a language of desire in
general.
A friend of ours, Jay Stringer,who wrote the book Unwanted he
talks about, can we talk aboutwhat other things we desire?
Because as humans and, I think,as Christians, desire is a word
many people are scared of,because if you desire something,
(33:39):
then is it not proportionate?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Often is where they're coming to it, from
different places and differentlevels, if you will.
And then just the fear of whatdoes it mean that my spouse
really wants to do this thing?
Is that okay?
What does that mean about me?
That's where those internalizedmessages of purity culture that
(34:04):
to be often.
It's often women who end upsaying if I want that, does that
make me bad?
Speaker 2 (34:13):
well, and then also saying where did you come up
with that?
Speaker 4 (34:16):
right that too, it all yeah I was gonna say that I
think maybe somebody would say Idesire X, I desire this, but if
they, if they unpack where itcame from.
It comes from pornography, itcomes from something they
watched in, or even like a movie, or even like an inappropriate
(34:37):
conversation, or even a and sohow do you kind of coach couples
through, through that?
Speaker 3 (34:43):
That that avenue.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
It's so great right?
Speaker 3 (34:49):
This is kind of my short answer and I want to hear
what you say because I know youwork with a lot of women on this
.
But my short answer is I wouldlike guys to think about why is
it that I want that thing?
Because I do see an attemptsometimes to go after their
arousal template, which is likethe type of pornography they
(35:10):
want, and people don't realizethat the type of pornography
they go to is very related totheir own past and wounds and
things that they're wrestlingwith.
They don't recognize that, andso then they try to bring that
into a marriage relationship andit doesn't work and it's not
(35:30):
healthy.
So that would be the place thatI would go.
Nope, nope.
We need to work through whyyou're looking to do that, and
that includes fetish things,that includes power things.
There's a lot of differentelements that that brings in,
and entering that into amarriage is often very unhealthy
and it ends up not beinghealthy.
(35:50):
Now, what's different than thatis some of the sexual acts, and
I'm not going to be toospecific here, but there are
various sexual acts that peopleenjoy and have, and, yes, they
are created and seen inpornography, but that's because
(36:12):
there's only so many things thatyou do with the body, right?
So, yes, are they replicatingsomething that other people do?
Sure, but that doesn't meanthat's what it's all about,
right, and so I do think therecan be places where certain acts
can be healthy in marriage, butit's all about our motivation
(36:33):
of why do I want that, that weneed to start with, why is that?
And then, how do we make itsafe for both people,
emotionally safe, physicallysafe for both people, for both?
people emotionally safe,physically safe for both people.
That's the key of how do webring any of that kind of stuff
healthy into our relationship.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Sure, yeah, I think the same can be said for women
as well, and, believe it or not,the rate of women watching
pornography is constantly on therise as well.
It's just so accessible, and weall have wounds and we all cope
, and so it's not unfamiliar towomen, and lots of women I work
(37:14):
with have experiencedpornography.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Or reading pornography, if not watching.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yes, but believe it or not, viewing it as well, and
so I think you know what youjust said can be very true too.
We need to think about where isthat coming from?
And then I think the questionis, like looking at it, of if
I'm really opposed to something.
Is there a reason Right and I'mnot talking about the things
(37:43):
that we're talking about thatare fringe and scary and power
and somebody's you know doesn'tfeel safe.
But if your spouse wants to dosomething and like, are you dead
set against it and is there areason, that's absolutely okay.
Is it something you're like Idon't know, I might be willing
to try it, but I'm not certain.
(38:03):
You're like I don't know, Imight be willing to try it, but
I'm not certain.
Or is it a yes, right?
And I think, reminding ourselvesthat we can go through that
process where we can askourselves where am I on the
scale with this, so that I canunderstand my own self, my own
fears, my own whatever, and askthose questions, because I think
(38:25):
it's a normal process forpeople to be like I don't know.
If we are told impurity cultureand if we did wait, not saying
that the people that didn't,that's the end of the world by
any means.
But for those of us who didwait, it's like, well, now I'm
just supposed to be open to allthe things and I don't really
(38:46):
understand all the things andwhy would we do that?
And right there becomes thisclosed off, like we didn't
educate, and so now it's like Idon't know.
So I think we have to kind ofgo through a kindness process of
why is this a no, and that'sokay, but I think it's important
to go through.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
How do you guys coach couples to have?
I mean, this is probably aone-hour answer all by itself,
but how do you kind of coachcouples to have those
conversations?
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Yeah, so it depends on what stage they're in.
You know, a lot of times we'reending up talking to this to
premarital couples who haven'texperienced it yet and they're
just trying to go wait.
How do we get our heads aroundthis?
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Poor premarital couples.
We just go there, right, we'relike, this isn't going to help
if we aren't going to go there?
Speaker 3 (39:38):
So we're pretty forward in kind of saying, hey,
let's remember, this is aneducational process and it is
going to be something you learnaround your lifetime as a couple
together, so do not expect itto be amazing, glorious, perfect
the first 10 times, right, itis a process of learning.
(39:59):
So that's first, and then it isstarting to talk about a.
Do you feel a freedom of whatthey talk about in Corinthians?
This verse in 1 Corinthians 7is used against people so often,
but it is meant for freedom.
My body is my wife's and shegets to enjoy and explore that.
(40:26):
I get to enjoy and explore herbody.
It's meant for freedom.
That verse has been misused tomean responsibility.
Oh, you have to give me youright, like a taking.
It's not supposed to be that.
It is supposed to be.
Look, this is enjoyable, thisis passion.
Let's explore each other'sbodies in freedom, not
(40:50):
obligation.
Right, that's where it getstwisted and I think if we can
learn that there is beauty inthat, that there is.
You know we encourage couplesto read Song of Songs together
because there's such beauty andpassion in the Bible about
(41:12):
desire and sexuality that iswritten into that poem that you
read it as a married couplewho's had sex, you go.
Oh, that's what that metaphormeant.
I had no idea when you saw itearlier.
Those kind of things are soimportant that we start to learn
(41:33):
how to enjoy sexuality.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Mm-hmm, I think there's, yeah, I think there's a
huge part that impacts this isjust body right, and I think I
end up working I'm just going tospeak for myself with a lot of
women who you can't be a womanin the United States and not
have trauma around your body.
I haven't met one yet, andwe're talking about the gamut of
(41:59):
how people appear, althoughthat doesn't really matter, and
I think that is a challenge formuch of this, and I am uncertain
how much purity culture playedinto that, but I do think it did
, yeah, and so that is one thingI would mention too of just
needing to do some healing workaround my body in general is
(42:22):
good, because many women do notfeel that way.
It has not been expressed tothem that way, and I'm not
saying there isn't the samemessage for some men, but I
don't think as many men got thatin purity culture as women did,
so that's another one that wekind of have to tackle when
(42:43):
we're helping couples throughthat.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
Well, again, I mentioned that I think purity
culture lifts up kind ofasexuality as the ideal.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
And I think if that's true, you're almost punished.
If you're an attractive person.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
I mean that sounds weird, but it's almost like
that's your fault or somethingand that's really confusing
messaging.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
And there's then harm on both sides of that message.
Right, yeah, for sure.
If you are that attractiveperson, then it's like oh, my
body is sinful because it'sdrawing all these people in
looks and that's bad.
Right.
So they're being taught thattheir body is now bad.
They're also being taught theirbody is now bad, they're also
being taught.
Their body gets them gets themseen and heard, and and so that
(43:30):
becomes its own.
Yeah and then there's this otherside that so many people
believe that they're not theworld standard of beautiful.
Then they don't.
Their body doesn't have anyvalue and it needs to be hidden.
And so there's such strongmessages there.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
Yeah, and maybe your teen boy is like sitting in
youth group and is hearing theother guys say like yeah, you
know girls, whatever.
And they're thinking like, yeah, girls right, yeah, absolutely.
That's happening to me too.
But, like you know the struggle, what you're saying is like the
messaging exists for girls,also for guys.
(44:10):
This like you almost and thisis where, like the messaging of
purity culture is such like aninternal battle, because it's
like the good is also the bad,you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
It's like the bad is also the good um but I want you
to think through what I know,what I was taught when I was in
youth group, and what is told tomen.
So often in those situations,the answer that is given is you
have to just bounce your eyesoff of this person who is
(44:40):
attractive.
Now I want to go on record.
There is a place for bouncingeyes.
It is for the cheerleaders thatpop up on the game that you're
watching.
It is for the billboard thatyou're driving by.
That's inappropriate.
There are places for bouncingyour eyes, but think about the
dehumanization that happens whenit's taught in a youth group
(45:02):
setting, when it's taught in achurch setting that now I can't
even look at you.
That's so inappropriate, right?
Instead of teaching and this iswhat I tried to teach my boys is
great, that person's attractive.
There's nothing wrong with thembeing attractive.
They are also a child of Godand we need to see their
(45:23):
humanness, not just theirphysical appearance.
And we can't just ignore thembecause oh wait, I might have
thoughts.
That's your responsibility tocontrol those thoughts, not just
dehumanize them and pretendthey don't exist because I'm
seeing a person here, right?
(45:44):
So I think that message is soimportant that we communicate to
boys like, yeah, it's yourresponsibility.
If you find somebody attractive, fine they're.
They're attractive, that's.
There's nothing wrong with thembeing attractive.
What do?
Speaker 2 (45:58):
we do about that Attracted to them.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
It's just then.
Where do we go?
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Where do you go with that?
Speaker 4 (46:05):
yeah, I think that is , and maybe we could start to
transition into the kid piece,because it's like communicating
the difference between like,attraction and lust, because
like, so good, I'm not even sureif, if a teenager asked me
what's the difference inattraction and lust, I, I, you
know I experience attraction tomy wife.
Yep, also, it, it's also.
It's also like I don't know howto, how do I parse that for
(46:27):
them?
Speaker 2 (46:27):
You know what I mean Like and being married is tough
because it's like it's can youstill lust in your marriage?
Yes, but like those lines arevery different because you guys
have mutually decided to do lifetogether and therefore marriage
and sexual intimacy together.
I think lust and this is goingto sound very drastic, but Dan
(46:50):
Allender says it this way and Ithink it kind of gives a
different perspective Lust iswanting to consume just people.
Right, we can lust after lustlots of things, and I think
that's very different than wow,I found that person attractive
(47:10):
and you know.
And then I dealt with mythoughts and moved on, and maybe
, brad, you can speak to thatmore.
Then I stayed there and Iallowed myself to get to the
point where I want to consumethat person, and I think that
can give a very drasticdifferent picture.
(47:30):
What would you say, babe?
Speaker 3 (47:32):
So I deal with this a lot when I'm dealing with men
with unwanted sexual behavior iswhere is this line of lust?
And I will say I think most ofus guys have trouble defining it
, but we absolutely know whenit's happening.
Right, it is that it's thatkind of gray area where it is
hard to know, like, exactly howto put the words to it, but we
(47:57):
know when our eyes go past wow,that's an attractive person to
ooh, I want that Right and Iwant to possess that.
I want to take that.
I wish I could have that right.
There is a place that that isdifferent, and I always point to
the temptation of Jesus.
I would encourage yourlisteners to go and read
(48:19):
especially the second temptationof Jesus, where he is brought
to the top of the temple, andthe temptation specifically is
look at all that is before you.
I will give you all of this andmore Now.
We only have to flip back acouple of chapters to know
Solomon, to know what the kingsof Israel got, and that includes
(48:42):
what 600 concubines and morewives.
You can't tell me that Satandidn't utilize the fact that all
of these women could be his.
He was fully human as part ofthat that is part of the
temptation.
The temptation itself is notsin.
(49:03):
This could be yours.
Nope, I want somethingdifferent, right?
So we have to separate out thatjust seeing something is not
sin.
It's then going ooh, I wantthat, I want to possess that, I
want to take that for mine.
That isn't yours.
(49:25):
That's where lust starts tocome in.
Speaker 4 (49:28):
You're reminding me of a really good Lewis quote.
Cs Lewis has this quote aboutthis idea and he says in the
Four Loves he says we use a mostunfortunate idiom when we say
of a lustful man prowling thestreets that he quote, wants a
woman.
Strictly speaking, a woman isis just what he does not want.
He wants the pleasure for whicha woman happens to be the
(49:50):
necessary piece of apparatus.
He cares how much he caresabout the woman, as much as such
may be gauged by his attitudetoward her five minutes after
fruition.
And he puts in parentheses onedoes not keep the carton after
one has smoked the cigarettes Ithink that's man that is.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
That is spot on the difference between desire and
lust.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
Yeah, yeah right, because a a desire pushes you
towards someone.
It pushes you towardsrelationship with someone.
It cares about their emotions,it cares about their personhood.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
It cares about them right yeah, and I would argue,
even in marriage.
I know we're kind of startingto talk about teens, but even in
marriage we as guys but bothsides have to be cautious of
when we are coming to our spousejust for sexual release right.
And not for the engagement ofintimacy that is the wholeness
(50:49):
of sexual desire, right, becauseI think there are times and I'm
not going to define this as sin, but I think there are times
that I hear I work with guysmostly, so I hear guys going and
saying, oh yeah, well, if shejust did that, then everything
would be fine, I wouldn't bethinking about pornography.
That's a lie, right.
That's a lie that we havebelieved in this and we have to
(51:14):
be cautious of just seeing ourspouse as a way towards sexual
release, and that comes out ofexactly that quote.
Speaker 4 (51:23):
Yeah, and it's a, it's a baby of purity culture,
right?
Because if my wife is thesolution to my sexual problems,
if getting married, is married,is the solution to my sexual
problems, then if marriagedidn't solve my sexual problems,
I must've bought a bad product,Right, and that's.
That's insane.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
It's insane, but it is so often something I hear.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
And I want to be cautious, like there are women
who struggle this thing, likeit's not always gender specific,
but I do think purity culturekind of had women mostly in one
camp and then mostly in another,but sometimes it's reversed.
Speaker 3 (52:01):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Because we do see a fair amount of couples where
that's the case as well.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
Yep.
Thank you guys so much.
We hope that you enjoyed that.
It was certainly a really funconversation that we got to have
.
It's something that we honestlywork with so many of our
clients around yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Sadly.
Speaker 3 (52:28):
Sadly, yeah, sadly, sadly, true, but one of the
things that happens when you'redoing marriage work is you end
up talking to people aboutsexual intimacy.
Of course right, because thatis a part of marriage.
And just more and more as we'vebecome more aware of where some
of the hurts and harms ofsexual intimacy are, we just see
(52:50):
some of the tentacles of thatside of unhealthy teaching from
the church.
Should be healthy teaching andhealthy encouragement and
healthy, you know, relationshipthings, and we just see so much
guilt and shame sometimes comingto marriages where you want to
(53:14):
be promoting that freedom.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Right.
Speaker 3 (53:16):
So we hope that that was beneficial for you.
I really encourage you to talkwith your spouse through like
what did they learn about sexand intimacy as they were
growing up?
Is it something that?
Speaker 2 (53:30):
they were taught what did their parents model, even
if they didn't grow up in thechurch.
Like me.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
Right, like what were the tentacles of this?
So I was recently listening toDevil in the Deep Blue Sea, a
podcast put out by ChristianityToday that was talking all about
the satanic panic of the 80sand the interesting thing.
I mean, yes, it certainlyimpacted church culture and
church kids more than others,but they're talking about how it
(54:03):
reached into kind of allculture.
You know on Oprah and it was onyou know a lot of news
organizations about these, youknow satanic things and so, just
because you may not have beenraised in the church, the
tentacles of some of theexpectations of you sexually,
(54:24):
whether that be purity orsomething are still there, right
, and so I think it's such aninteresting conversation to
think about that and how itimpacted you and then your
relationship.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (54:37):
So we'll certainly be talking more about this.
We enjoyed having theconversation.
Until next time, I'm BradAldrich.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
And I'm Kate Aldrich.
Be kind and take care of eachother.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Still Becoming One is a production of Aldrich
Ministries.
For more information about Bradand Kate's coaching ministry
courses and speakingopportunities, you can find us
at aldrichministriescom Forpodcast show notes and links to
resources in all of our socialmedia.
Be sure to visit us atstillbecomingonecom and don't
(55:12):
forget to like this episodewherever you get your podcasts.
And be sure to follow us tocontinue your journey on Still
Becoming One.
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